I don't have any experience with quadcopters (in real life), but have a lot of experience with building the planes and watched a looooottttt of quadcopter videos from rcmodelreviews etc. I have flow and learned to fly LOS quadcopter on the aerosim-rc simulator and some experience with FPV racing with the hotprops simulator.

When I will start building the quad (in about two months) I'll need some help with PID tuning since I don't have a that good feeling of what is a good PID configuration and what isn't.

I have the original hybrid G10/CF Nighthawk 250 and the new 280 which is also a hybrid G10/CF material.

The original 250 is considerably lighter than the new 280 despite being nearly identical in size. But I'm only running 1806 motors on the 250 and 2204's on the 280 so that's probably a big part of the weight difference.

I've bashed the heck out of both of them both and have yet to break any arms. I have sheared and bent the screws that mount the arms so obviously I've given them some pretty hard hits

Senior Member

The Full carbon 250 nighthawk is a very solid quad. I haven't had any problems with any stripping of any standoffs, might depend where you buy it from I suppose... I've also had some very hard impacts, and I only broke an arm once. It was a very hard impact at a hard angle causing the top layer of carbon on the arm to break at the frame and the other layer slightly delaminating. I dropped in some thin CA while I waited for a new arm and it was rock solid.

There are replacement arms today that are both thicker in thickness but also in width and are practically unbreakable.

Personally I prefer the nighthawk over the ZMR. though there's more PDB options for the ZMR. and don't see any weaknesses on the nighthawk that you don't also have on the ZMR.

That's the all carbon version which is good. it's also got the new style arms with less weak points and no cutouts so they're really solid and you're going to work really hard to break one

As for the ESC, I'm not sure, I think the ones I have are the emax 20A Simon (blheli actually) ones. and they fit in the ESC "compartment", but it's tight. Mine have the Cap sticking out straight though.

nope, checked my ebay history fo the replacement I orderes, I have the 12A ones. so yes, the 20A ones might be to big. also for the 2204/2300kv motors 12A should work just fine.

I gutted mine to build a Versacopter and trashed all the broken stuff.
I'm not saying the Nighthawk is a bad frame I just like the ZMR better. They are more popular so parts are more available and you can get a lot of up grade parts for them too.

Nicolas

I gutted mine to build a Versacopter and trashed all the broken stuff.
I'm not saying the Nighthawk is a bad frame I just like the ZMR better. They are more popular so parts are more available and you can get a lot of up grade parts for them too.

looks nice! Looks like a really clean built, both.
They always tought me with the 20% rule for choosing the escs.
Do you guys now any cheap place for well balanced props? The cheapest I found was about .5$ for one prop.
Thanks

Senior Member

with these minis you do not have to really worry about that. pretty much gemfans, HQ, dals, etc.. 5-6" props are ballance well enough for minis.. you will end up balancing them your self if you feel the need; on my zmr 250 iv not had to balance them yet and have not notice any issues. i just ordered a runcam mobius style action cam, so maybe i will rethink balance props in the 5-6" size.. i ended up ordering a dubro prop balancer, not used it yet tho.

So if you're running 12a ESC's and not overpowering them...a 35c 1300 will give you all the power you can use.

High capacity packs you can get by with lower C ratings. Take a 1800mah 35c pack, that gives you 63amp max or 15.75 per corner on a quad.

But that's only half the equation...capacity is the other half. A 1800mah pack has 500mah more capacity than a 1300mah...which can potentially give you more flight time...except that 1800 pack will weigh more and take more energy to push around so you'll drain it faster. And higher C packs are also usually heavier than lower C packs.

So it's complex and depends heavily on your setup and how much you're willing to pay for batteries.

Also...some batteries don't live up to their C rating while others exceed it. So experience and trial and error play a roll too.

My emax 280 pro I like 1300mah 45c packs, I've tried some 1300 35c packs and had them sag under throttle punches. I've also flown with 2200 40c packs, but don't really get any extra flight time because of the extra weight and it's less responsive in the air.

Senior Member

i did not even consider the esc amp. i bought some of the 45c battery's. but my battery's have sat for a few months so i may have to buy some new ones. so that explains why most are using the 20amp esc especially since they are so small now.
then you do not have to worry about your rating as much on a mini.

im planing on building a larger hex 680 size i want to keep it some what cheap on power.. so im planing on using 4s i think 5000mah or maybe two 4s.. as it seems a 4s 5000mah battery is about 60.00 so looks like i will want 40amp esc.